


When They Come For You

by GoldSparrow



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, He needs a break from destiny, Hurt Merlin (Merlin), Hurt/Comfort, Poor Merlin (Merlin), Whump, dragon - Freeform, hella whump, our poor boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26100730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldSparrow/pseuds/GoldSparrow
Summary: The whole entire town, even several knights stood in the courtyard, all faces he recognized. Most of them he had come to know and call family throughout the many years he had called Camelot home. But today they weren’t here to welcome him home. No. Far from it, today, they were to watch him burn.AKA: Merlin lives his worst nightmare.
Relationships: Kilgharrah & Merlin (Merlin), Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin & Morgana (Merlin)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 98





	When They Come For You

Guards pushed Merlin roughly from behind as the light of the setting sun pierced his eyes. Hands clasped tightly in cold iron chains behind his back, he barely manages to catch himself before unceremoniously stumbling forward onto his knees. Righting himself, his eyes look up to notice an enormous crowd. The whole entire town, even several knights stood in the courtyard, all faces he recognized. Most of them he had come to know and call family throughout the many years he had called Camelot home. But today they weren’t here to welcome him home. No. Far from it, today, they were to watch him burn. 

Despite the anxiety in his chest his eyes scanned the crowd desperately, pleading for mercy, searching for any connection, any lifeline. But as he kept searching, the more his hope died. Everyone’s eyes were narrowed upon him, their once friendly smiles replaced with harsh gazes. His stomach dropped like a stone sinking into the depths of the river. 

The guards pushed him forcefully again and he trudged down the palace steps and across the cobbled stones, the crowd parting way for him. 

Unable to meet any of their eyes, he kept his gaze down—until a he recognized a familiar figure a step ahead in his pereferrals.

Merlin’s eyes flicked up to Gwen, who stood at the edge of the crowd, tears in her eyes.

Stopping, throat dry, Merlin swallows. “G-Gwen…“

Her tearful face morphed into wrathful fury as she yelled, “You killed my father!”

“No! Gwen, you have to believe me, I didn’t mean—“ Just then the rest of the crowd began to echo her anger.

“…You’re a liar!” 

“Fucking Sorcerer!…” 

“—I’d trusted you!”

“It’s your fault my family is dead!”

“You were the one who released the Great Dragon!…”

Ire filling the courtyard like boiling water, the crowd rushed him, tearing at his clothes and pulling at his hair. Their nails scratched him. They struck his face. They kicked him. He almost fell over, gasping, “I’m sorry…” the only sound coming out of his lips. He was then forcefully propelled forward through the throng by the guards who were unaffected by the people’s passing violence. 

Eyes swimming with tears, face and body red and raw, he was thrown across the pyre. Before he could right himself, his hands were pulled back and his torso was bound to the standing pole. The crowd he considered family continued to shout all around him, raising their fists and spitting curses. 

A drum’s beat hummed in the air, and his attention was pulled up to the castle balcony lit with blood red sunlight. Uther stood aloft, regal and cold as ever. The man, the monster of Merlin’s nightmares.

The crowd momentarily grew silent, wrapt in anticipation. 

Uther’s words echoed through the courtyard. “Did you think you could easily get away with your crimes?…That you wouldn’t ever see _justice?”_

There wasn’t any smoke and already Merlin was choking on nothing but air, tears clouding his vision, his loose tongue for once tied, unable to move to defend himself. Through Uther’s speech, he lowered his head, and suddenly remembered, heart pounding.

_Arthur!…Gods, if only Arthur was here, he would stand up for me—he would!—_

It was then that a tingle went down his spine, Merlin’s eyes snapping forward like a sixth sense, alighting on his friend, his king. Arthur stood just in front of the crowd, not a few steps away from Merlin, holding a fiery sconce with a sad expression.

Eyes growing wide, and heart beating frantically Merlin manages to whisper out, “Arthur, please…everything that I’ve done, I’ve always meant…magic is not evil!”

Face stoic, Arthur says, “I’m not angry with you because of the magic.”

Merlin’s brows raise, before slowly being pulled to the gaping hole of bloody red steadily growing in Arthur’s torso.

“I’m angry at you because you _failed.”_

Before Merlin can even draw a breath Arthur lights the pyre, and his world turns red.

—

Merlin tossed and turned.

_He was burning. He was burning._

He gasped for air as he became further tangled in the dark, blankets wrapped around his neck like a noose.

 _“Arthur, no, please!”_

Merlin snapped up out of his bed, eyes alight with gold, his sheets disintegrating off him in ashes. His eyes flitted across his room.

 _In front of him, Merlin could see Arthur, eyes burning with anger as flames licked all around Merlin’s vision._

Breaths coming out in short gasps, Merlin stumbled onto his hands and knees, a hand at his throat. His bedroom door slammed open on its own accord.

 _His magic panicking inside him, he tries to use his magic to douse the flames, but instead it only made the flames rise higher._.

Merlin ran out into the physician’s courters, eyes glowing, frantically looking around. “Merlin!” Gaius jumped up and rushed over to his ward, grabbing his arms. “What’s wrong?”

_Suddenly, melting through the flames, Morgana emerges lunging and grabbing ahold of Merlin’s throat. “Oh Merlin,” she cooes with a smile, “what’s wrong?”_

Glowing eyes unseeing, Merlin fought like a madman in the physician’s grip. “Merlin—Ah!” Gaius pulled his hands away, burned where he once held his ward. Released from the older man’s hold, the main door swung open with deathly force, and Merlin bolted barefoot outside as the room and all its contents shook like an earthquake on his way out.

_By some miracle Merlin was able to wrench free of the witch’s grip, and free himself from the ropes securing his hands and torso from the pole. Merlin ran and ran through the never-ending flames, the fiery heat searing his feet, his hands, his lungs, his face. “Ohh Meeeerlin….” Morgana’s voice echoed from all around._

Glowing red hands and feet scorching the stone walls and steps, Merlin raced up the stairs of the physician’s tower.

 _“Why do you run Merlin?” A laugh echoes above the flames. “You can’t possibly think that wherever you go, I won’t find you. I_ know _who you_ are…” _  
Merlin was hyperventilating in the acrid air. He couldn’t say anything, paralyzed the one fear that had haunted him for so long—She knows! She knows! She’s going to kill me!_

Merlin tripped into the top of the tower, an empty room with the light of the waning moon shining through a giant glass window.

 _“You thought that you would be safe because of your little ‘secret’ didn’t you? You think I wouldn’t know,_ Emrys?”

The high tower walls caught fire around him, flames rising to the ceiling as he continued to stumble backward, his hands and feet scorching the wood beneath his feet.

 _The fire dancing across his vision cleared enough to make out he was now in a circular room in the castle. Flames lick hungrily around its circumference like a fortified cell. His eyes flick back and forth, until suddenly, fear squeezing the breath out of his lungs alerts him to the dark presence just beyond the entryway. A lone figure steps slowly into the room, unaffected by the inferno, the flames parted like water before her.  
“Swef…akwel-l…” Merlin tries to send spells her way, but couldn’t even choke out the words beyond the smoke, the burning, but most of all, his fear.  
Morgana strut calmly forward in her black dress, a large smirk on her face. “I will kill you Emrys, and let me tell you, the pyre will feel like a mercy compared to what I will do with you.”  
Eyes blazing with fiery gold, her hand raises._

Embers and broken wood from the tower’s ceiling crash around the warlock like hellfire and tongues of flame blaze lick at his clothing and body.

_Merlin’s body burns from the inside out with the heat of a sun. Screaming at the pain, utterly helpless unable to stop Morgana, with the last of his strength, Merlin lifts his head and cries, “Drákon! Éla! Sóse me tóra! Viásou na voithíso!”_

His magic reaching a boiling point, the fire magically exploded as Merlin curled in on himself, his screams muffled by the inferno around him, the fire enveloping the whole room. 

_The heat was overtaking him. He was going to die, without having apologized…Arthur…I’m sorry…_

Without warning, a crash thundered over the sound of exploding flame. The window behind Merlin shattered as a long claw reached in and snatched him away from the firestorm. Bringing the Warlock close to his chest, Kilgharrah flew away from the sleeping city below.

_A rush of color and sound whipped around him, and Emrys welcomed his end…_

_“Emrys!” Morgana cooed._

_“Emry—"_

_“Mer—“_

“Merlin!” Merlin’s eyes snapped open to see a golden fire blazing in front of him. Gasping, he struggled to get away, but instead, cried out in pain.

“Merlin, Merlin! You are safe! You are still in this world, you are breathing, now, breathe with me…” He took sputtering breaths, or sobs, no longer any fight in him to struggle against the golden warmth he was surrounded by. Though his eyes were tightly shut, he could hear deep steadying breaths, and the beating heart of a dragon. As he began to calm down, he moved and gasped. Merlin could then feel burns across his skin, his hands, his feet, his body…his breathing began to quicken.

Sensing his distress, the dragon spoke softly, “Release your magic, young warlock. You are safe, it was but a dream…There we are…Let it go…”

Heart still beating quickly, Merlin winged out a breath and let the gold fade from behind his eyelids, and the intense fire in his chest, and around his body calmed.

Eyes opening for but a moment to look at his charred hands, Merlin sobbed into Kilgarrah’s scales. 

“It’s okay young warlock. I’m here…”

Merlin stayed there, wrapped under the protection of Kilgarrah’s wings for the rest of the night and far past into the next morning. In the comforting presence of his dragon, he was able to rest, though it wasn’t until a several days later that he allowed himself to fall once again under sleep’s spell…

**Author's Note:**

> Probably could have taken another day to write this but, oh well! Hope you enjoyed this whumpy one-shot! This story was birthed from the idea of 'what if Merlin's magic brought his nightmares to life?'
> 
> Drákon! Éla! Sóse me tóra! Viásou na voithíso! = Dragon! Come! Save me now! Hurry to my aid!
> 
> Please tell me if you liked!


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